In this instructional farm video, the caretakers walk through the stepābyāstep preparation for a sow that is about to farrow. They begin by ensuring the farrowing area is clean and equipped with fresh water, mineral supplements, deep bedding, and hay for a nest. They discuss testing the sow (Flossie) and managing milk production, emphasizing the need to stimulate milk demand to maintain output. The speakers then cover equipment and logistics: using alfalfa buckets, a dehydrator for yogurt, a tractor to move mulch, and a 3āway cattle mineral feeder loaded with charcoal, kelp, and swine NutriBalancer, taking care to avoid spillage. Finally, they share a behavioral tipāhaving another gilt present to calm the mother sow during farrowing, reducing aggression. Throughout, the tone is practical and conversational, offering concrete, onātheāground advice for smallāscale livestock producers.
Chapters
Our pig is great with child. She's due like day before yesterday, so we need to set up her area. There's a lot we gotta do to make her comfortable. One, let's make sure her water is cleaned out. Let's get her their minerals. Let's get deep bedding and some hay for a nest. We'll get to the pigs in a minute. We gotta check over chores first. Check their milk job. Pretty good. Okay, where's Flossie? Let's getā let's test her. I told them I wanted to test. What happened?
I just heard you.
Oh, okay. Can we get Flossie over here? Let's test her.
Can you test the way she's eating hay? You've done it.
Maybe. I know, uh, not gonna happen, guys. It'll be a lot easier easier if you just leave them tied up until I come check.
The calf is nursed.
Oh yeah, that's a good point about Flossy. There's room for error on Flossy because the calf nurses, but we need to demand the milk. If you don't demand the milk, the milk production goes back. Oh boy. You can kind of see, I guess he's seeing out the side, so that's good. Come on, I got his collar. Okay, all right, what can we learn about alfalfa buckets? Let's get this one out right now. Can we do that? Yes.
All right, we have everybody together now, the sheep and the cows, the little Yeah, you think the little guys are little enoughā
are big enough to kind of get out of Stud's way? Yeah, I think so. We can, we can do the flirt again.
I didn't know Hope was this nice.
Dehydrator at 105 for 7 hours and we'll have yogurt. I think we can get our tractor right through here and we can come get this mulch by tractor. We've done wheelbarrow, but what the heck, we got a tractor. Is there any left over here? This is even easier to get to. There's some, there's a load or two right there. Yeah, let's get that first. Okay, let's see if we'll be able to put the tractor bucket over into the pigs. Yeah, she's, she's laying in her own poop right now. Yeah, let's fix that. So can we come with the tractor at an angle and put it in each thing? I think we totally can. Let's do it. Got a 3-way cattle mineral feeder bolted on top of a pallet. Charcoal, kelp, and swine NutriBalancer. All right, let's see if we can get that through without spilling it all out. Decideā gonna spray it down a little bit. It's a little dusty in here. Well, at least they have a butt scratch. Okay, that's how you do that. I got one more thing to do, Jonah. Fresh water, minerals, bedding, hay. You ready to have your baby? We've learned too, it's good to have another gilt in there, the mom canā uh, Derek from Grass Grazed taught us that the mom can chill out, nurse her babies. If anybody comes around, the other gilt gets up and, you know, checks things out, goes to it, and the mom doesn't feel like she has to defend, I guess. So the moms can be less aggressive when there's another gilt in there with her. You eating some of that hay? That's good.
